Page 41 of Unplanned Target

Miranda’s hand slaps over my mouth, sealing off any explanation I was going to attempt to offer. “Shut up.”

Now is the worst possible time to get a hard on. Only a man with no sense of self-preservation would get aroused under these circumstances.

Yet here I am, completely turned on by a woman who probably terrifies most men.

And thank God for that, because it meant she was free and clear when I found her.

“Why did you do that?” Miranda leans closer, her dark eyes pleading for something I can’t name. “What did you possibly have to gain?”

I lift my brows, looking down at where her soft palm still presses against my lips.

She pulls her hand from my mouth, clenching it into a fist at her side. “Well?”

“I wasn’t trying to gain anything.” I resist the urge to lick my lips in search of a tiny taste of her skin. “He took a cheap shot, knowing damn well how much it would hurt you. I get that he feels like shit, but it’s no fucking excuse for turning your fears about the relationship you have with Allie against you.”

“What do you mean, my fears about the relationship I have with Allie?” Miranda shakes her head. “I don’t have any fears.”

“Yes, you do. You’re scared one day Allie’s going to feel about you the way you feel about your mother.” I shake my head. “But she’s not. You work hard to give her as much freedom as you safely can while still trying to help her understand the way the world works.” I reach up, curling my hand against her jaw. “You don’t judge her, or blame your emotions on her actions. You don’t tell her she’s wrong for being who she is. You appreciate her even when she drives you fucking crazy.”

Miranda’s chest rises and falls on quick breaths as she listens to my words. For a second, I’m worried I’ve overstepped. That I butted my nose somewhere it doesn’t—and never will—belong.

But I’m not going to let anyone talk to her that way. Even her own brother.

“Dammit, Owen.” She grabs the front of my shirt again, hands gripping tight as she goes up on her toes, getting right in my face. “You are making my life really fucking complicated right now.”

And then, for the second time, she plants her lips right on mine.

FIFTEEN

MIRANDA

Who would have thought all it would take is twenty-four hours of a man being nice to me, and I’d be beyond ready to break my dry spell? Certainly not me.

But that was mostly because I didn’t think there was any man who could be nice to me for twenty-four hours straight. Then Owen showed up, and proved himself to be the exception to almost every belief I have regarding the opposite sex.

I still subscribe to the same belief system, don’t get me wrong. I’ve just found the unicorn of a man those beliefs don’t apply to.

And I want him. In lots of ways. But this specific second, I want his hands on me. I want to put my hands on him. I want to put more than my hands on him. For the first time in my life, I’d like to suck the dick of a man who doesn’t expect it.

And Owen is definitely not expecting it, because when my hands go to the waistband of his pants, he puts a stop to my plans, grabbing both wrists in one large palm.

Before I can even be disappointed, our positions are switched, and it’s my back against the wall. We’ve been here before, but last time my hands weren’t also pinned above my head.

Is it possible to spontaneously orgasm? Because if it is, I think it’s about to happen. That could just be the decade of going without talking, but I don’t think it is.

Not a single man has interested me since the divorce. No one has even remotely made me consider going back on my plan to never get into another entanglement. To never put myself in a position to be taken advantage of or used.

Not until Owen. And somehow, he’s made me forget all the promises I made myself in one day.

A single, freaking day.

“I need you to take a second, Mir.” Owen’s breathing heavily, his grip on my wrists as tight as the one on my hip. “A lot has happened, and I’m not sure you’re thinking straight.”

“I’m thinking very straight.” I lick my lips, completely focused on the man in front of me. “No one has ever stood up for me the way you just did, and I would very much like to repay the favor.”

On my knees. Seeing how quickly I can make him come.

I’ve heard women talk about men who made all the feminism leave their body, and while I understood what they were saying—and even found it slightly amusing—I never got it.